Wrapping up 2015

So wow we are now at the end of 2015..... HOW THE FRIG did that happen.

So I hope you had a lovely Christmas and I hope your New Year is magical!

This year is has just been one of the biggest and most exciting so far in my 27 years on this planet! I wrote a post in the beginning of the year with all my resolutions. 

2015

Loving myself. 

We are getting there.... I struggled to loose the few pounds I put on over Christmas last year and all year I've just been kind of staying the same. I have come to realise though that actually I have done well keeping the weight off and actually those few pounds do not define me or my success. Generally though I am getting better and better. My confidence in myself is growing and I feel like I really am becoming the person I always wanted to be! 

Working on my design work

Well... I did make a new Halloween design and I also sold loads more cards this year. I did plan on making badges but that got forgotten for now due to cost. I think with everything that has happened this year this got left behind a bit!

Debt, 

THAT I CAN SAY IS ALL GONE. I now am pretty good at handling money! I have used the credit card over the holidays to help out, but I am proud to say it's under control and I know I can pay it straight off! The relief I have that I owe nothing and all my money is MY money is amazing although I don't think it has completely sank in! I know now how quickly things can spiral out of control so I won't be getting myself if that situation ever again!

Having my own home!

And this has been achieved. This was the ultimate BIGGEST goal of this year and I made it back in June. We moved out and started renting our own home. We celebrated my birthday in the flat this year and are celebrating our first Christmas in the flat together. It is an amazing feeling and I have waited a long time to have this space for ourselves. 

So out of my plans for 2015 I managed to cross 2 off my list completely while taking a big chunk into one (although I feel that one is on going) and well the other one got a little look in!

So plans for 2016! Well I hope this year is just as good as 2015 and if not better! I have some things I would like to achieve so on to my resolution list.

2016

Saving for a once in a life time holiday 

So this year I want to save to do a huge blow out holiday in Floria and do Disney Land and Orlando Studios. In all honesty I don't think I can save that much this year but hopefully by the end of the year I will have enough to book it and do it in 2017! I want to have the biggest most crazy holiday of my dreams with Matthew!

Making sure I enjoy my free time and get out and do more

This year I haven't done much, and my social life has been next to non due to moving and saving. Next year I want to make sure I get out more. Enjoy trips to London and go to see some live shows have some lovely date days and nights with Matt as well as some more wild nights out with friends! 

Continuing with the self love!

This I guess is most likely an on going one which will be a life long battle. But I want to be more relaxed and accepting of myself this year. I really hope I can pull it off. I want to not worry about the odd pound that may fluctuate and just remember that I deserve a bit of self love!

So that is my round up of 2015 and my plans for 2016, I hope this year is just as successful, and if so more than the last.

Not only have I achieved what I wanted to achieve but I had some pretty epic experiences! 
Including:

• Attending the Game of Thrones premiere 
• Getting tickets for Mumford secret Brighton gig
• Moving into my first home
• Meet Richard Dean Anderson
• Front Row at Mumford and Sons

I also said goodbye to my white hair and I couldn't be happier with it! Plus all my broken bits are growing back nicely.

 I will end this post with a few of my favorite pictures from 2015!

Game of Thrones Read Carpet event

Harry Potter and my AMAZING Birthday 

Meeting my HERO RDA 

American football with Matt!

Feeling a million dollars at the Elektra Awards 

First ever Christmas tree

Christmas party shinagans

Front row at Mumford and Sons!

I am off to see Star Wars in a bit and then order LOADS OF Chinese food and watch lots of movies! It is my idea of a prefect NYE

So Happy New Year everyone!

Are you the droid i've been looking for?

So we are now into the week between Christmas and New Year and I mostly plan on hibernating and taking advantage of my Cineworld card. We are going to see the Good Dinosaur tomorrow, then on NYE we are seeing Star Wars (again) and then The Danish Girl on Saturday which I am super excited about. In-between that I will be eating and sleeping.

We saw Star Wars on Christmas Eve and now I am a tad obsessed. We bulk watched the previous Star Wars films as I've never been interested. I am a little annoyed how much I ended up enjoying them and now I am feeling like a new obsession is coming on from my inner fan girl. So we thought it would be great to see the new film again before we go back to work.

One reason I really enjoy the films is R2-D2 and now I have fallen madly in love with BB-8.... We did an IoT conference back at the beginning of the month at work and they had a BB-8 droid there that I had a play with and I loved! But as I wasn't a Star Wars fan I was too fussed. Since seeing the film however I was praying the following morning I would get enough money to afford a BB-8 droid.

I didn't but I bought one anyway and I regret nothing! He is amazing and is so much fun, i'm going to have to take him to work and show him off a bit haha! 

This is a Christmas present from me to me, this year has been tough and I have struggled and been stressed. I have achieved a lot in the last 2-3 years so this is a gift for me.

I have been crazy spoilt again this year however, I posted a few photos in a previous post on Christmas day, but I got lots of Harry Potter bits, Firefly Necklace, Clarks leather boots, Pj's, slippers, pop funkos, yankee candle and my awesome unicorn lights. 

So I am going to go back to my relaxing today as this is actually the first day I have had ABSOLUTELY nothing to do and I have been looking forward to it. I hope the rest of your holidays is peaceful and relaxing!

HAPPY CHRISTMAS

This is just a quick post to say HAPPY CHRISTMAS. As another Christmas rolls to an end I am full of food, sleepy and throughly spoilt again.

I got some wonderful presents and ate some wonder food. I got to wear my brand new jumper today (the last few Christmas's I have gotten dressed up only to regret it half way through the afternoon when I feel like a prized potato.) So this year just casual and comfy!

Matt and I got up early this morning around 7am and we opened our gifts. It is our first Christmas in our flat so it was all new experiences but it felt great to be here with him!He got me Narwal slippers, a heated fox cushion and most awesome of all a large and a baby unicorn lamp. I of course got some awesome geeky gifts too including Crimson Peak pops and Firefly leaf on the wind necklace which is just beautiful! Also the Harry Potter blu ray set, yankee candle and some amazing boots.

I also got some vouchers and a bit of money. I was hoping to get enough money to buy a BB8 droid but alas I am a little short.. maybe a Christmas present to myself? haha? Maybe!

I now am back at home and I plan on watching Dr Who and vegging out for the rest of the evening/week!

I hope you had or are having a wonderful Christmas!

Happy Christmas Eve

So here we are at the end of the year and it is already Christmas eve. How on earth did that happen. I finished work on the 21st and on Tuesday I did lots of boring bits like the dentist etc. But on Christmas eve, eve (23rd) me and Matt planned a day up to London.

Last year we had a night away and went and visited the festival of lights at Longleat. I wanted to do something nice again so I booked tickets to wee War Horse. I decided to make a day off it and it turned out that the Coca-Cola Lorry was going to be in Leister Square that day so win win!

I got up early-ish and headed to London for about 10am and we started by visiting Winter Wonderland. I enjoyed a very nice Sausage and chips and then a Crepe and after a few hours there we headed off down Oxford Street.

I had booked tickets for 14:30 showing of War Horse so we headed over to The New London Theatre.

The show was STUNNING! I cried lots and our seats were just amazing right on the front. We saw the show live streamed into the cinema a few years ago and it was amazing then, but in person it was breath taking.

The puppets were beautiful and the operators were mind blowing, they really did look like real animals and you forgot at times that they weren't! I really didn't want the show to end.

We then had a look in a few shops (I got a new jumper for Christmas day) and headed to Leister Square and enjoyed the Coca-Cola Lorry in all it's festivities.

We got home eventually at about 10pm which was much later than I had planned but it was a really good day out. We then ordered way too much pizza and watched the last star wars film we had to watch before we go and see the new one in the cinema today.

I am hoping that from now until the 4th Jan it will be a easy relaxing time, and I CANNOT wait to open my presents tomorrow, judging by the big pile under my tree I think I will be very spoilt again this year.

We had a great Christmas eve, eve and my plans for Christmas eve is to watch lots of Christmas films and go and see the new Star Wars film in 4DX this afternoon. 

I hope you all have a fantastic Christmas!

Mumford and Sons front row adventures

For my birthday my Ma and Pa got me Mumford and Son's tickets! My sister and I saw them back in April at a secret gig and I saw them almost three years to the day at the o2!

I regretted getting seated tickets the first time I saw them so I knew I wanted to stand! I took the day off work and my sister and I headed over to the o2 at about 11am.

I wanted to queue and try and get to the front, I was shocked though when we turned up at 1pm to see only 8-10 people in the queue. The 5 and a half hours actually went very quickly and before we knew it we were at the front barrier bang in the middle of the stage!

I got an amazing jumper (so did my sister) that I am currently wearing and it is just SOO comfy and I love it! I also have to thank Sarah for that as she is WAY too generous with me and paid for half of it! So THANK YOU to her!

I was a little gutted as 15-20 minutes into Mumford coming on Sarah had to go to the ladies room really badly and had to leave the front row! I was GUTTED for her and really torn of what to do! I decided to stay and although I am sad Sarah wasn't there to enjoy it with me I had an unbelievable time.

At one point Marcus jumped down and I missed him by only a few inches! They played loads of oldies which was amazing as I have to say I do much prefer those including Little Lion Man! Alas no Winter Winds again!

It was amazing though and I managed to get a set list at the end of the night! Sarah came and found me as I was still waiting for a encore (I didn't realise that had already happened haha!) I didn't want it to end. I sang so hard my voice felt like it was breaking and I was exhausted.

I loved it! AND I just want to go back again!

Set List 9th December 

---

Snake Eyes
I will wait
Below my feet
Broad-shouldered beast
Awake
Lover of the Light
Thistle
Tompkin Sq Park
Believe
Ghosts
Cave
Ditmas
Dust Bowl

---

Hot Gates

I'm on fire

Little Lion Man

The Wolf

I managed to stick my set list in my scrap book upside down so yay for that!

But it was amazing and being front row was completely surreal. Jack Garret was the support act and he was amazing too, I might have to have a look into seeing him live as his album comes out early next year!

I hope it isn't another 3 year wait for a new album and I can go and see Mumford sooner! I have to say they are my all time favourite band right now!

Christmas countdown has begun!

One of the biggest reasons I have been looking forward to Christmas this year is the idea of decorating my own home and having my own tree! Because the year is disappearing quicker than I can keep track of we are now into December and on the first I hurried home and put my tree up.

I have had these decorations and the tree long before we actually had plates, towels of furniture (I went sale shopping on boxing day last year!) so I was so excited to put it up! All the tree decorations are ones that ADORED and picked out with Matt so each one feels special to me!

And then of course you know when you are counting down for Christmas when the Christmas party comes around! I had a EPIC time this year, my head was sore the next day and I was so tired but I had such a awesome time! The day started very early for me at 6:20am as I had to help out at out IoT design conference, it was then a dash home to get ready and back to work to check emails and then the party.

I had rather a lot of cider as well as some other drinks, I was nominated for an award but alas I didn't win. We did win one for our team which I went on stage to collect with Hara and Jimmy.

I danced the night away, and almost missed my last train home at 12:37! I danced so hard that I have rather sore cut up feet.

I won't lie, I was a little worse for wear on Friday. Safe to say it was a very unproductive day in the office!

So December is 100% in full swing! My Christmas shopping is almost complete and I am counting down the days until my two weeks off!